A Quote by Tony Scott
A lot of actors talk about doing their homework, but very few of them do it.
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I don't really have girlfriends in movies, if you've noticed. Well, I have a few girlfriends, I just... I stay at home a lot. I'm just not very social. I don't do a lot with them, and I'm very homebound. I'll talk to my family, I talk to Brad... But I don't know, I don't have a lot of friends I talk to. He is really the only person I talk to.
A lot of actors never talk to other actors about how they're doing things, or why. I think it's important to share the way you're thinking.
I don't actually talk about my books much, because I find if I talk about them I don't want to write them anymore. I write to find out what happens. You know how you read a book? That's what I'm doing except I'm just doing it a lot slower because it takes a lot longer to do.
They would send me notes on what's going on, and we would pitch in and talk about what we wanted to talk about on the show. I just really did my homework. It was more like a real job for me. Doing this talk show was like, "Wow, this is what they do?!" I can't even imagine doing it every day.
Actors don't need a lot of talk beyond the first few sentences. They may say they don't draw on their own life, but all actors do.
Eddie Izzard is wonderful, I think, but I've only seen that one HBO special he did. He's one of the few people who talk about stuff other than girlfriends and relationships and flatulence and genitalia. There are very few of them who actually talk about real stuff.
If you have very few experiences in your life, romantically, or whatever you're doing, then of course you're going to talk about those, because there were only a few of them - as opposed to the people who repeat patterns, always at the bar, always with someone, always blah blah blah.
Actors aren't all the same. They have very different skills. There are actors of intellect who are very thoughtful about everything they do... and then there are actors of instinct who don't know what they're doing until the cameras roll... My father was actually quite thoughtful about what he did, while my mother was much more instinctual.
The idea the actors are the most important people on a film set I think is very stupid. Actors are the most replaceable people there. There are literally millions of us. There's very few people that can operate a steady-cam. The numbers are a lot, lot fewer for that, you know?
A lot of directors straight out of film school are very technically minded, but they don't have an understanding of actors or how to talk to them.
An awful lot of actors who are considered very good actors are not very good actors. There are people who just strike gold, they have intrinsic talent, but the point is that if they did train, it would not inhibit them. If they were with a good teacher, it would only broaden them more.
The thing with Ridley [Scott] is he's been doing this forever, he knows what it is he wants and how to get it. There's absolutely no messing around on set. Having said that, he's very accessible to actors, very open to what you want to do and willing to talk about it.
As a director, you have to know what actors are doing. You're the one telling them what to do. The actors' job is to come prepared to the set, but sometimes, if they're beginning actors or people who are non-actors, you have to teach them how to act.
People are very uncomfortable when you call actors artists because there are a lot of actors out there that aren't artists - there are a lot of actors that are hired for very specific reasons that are shallow and have to do with sexual currency and what the industry thinks sells. Real actors are artists, they're expressionists.
I do extensive storyboards so people can get a sense of what we're doing, and what the attitude and tone is. I work a lot with the actors. I like to go to sets or locations with them before shooting so that they know what they'll be doing on the day. I have found actors really do like to know about blocking, etc., before the shoot day comes.
When I do interviews about movies I direct, I often talk about how my superpower as a director is that I'm an actor. I can talk to actors. I'm not afraid of actors.
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